Part II - Epilogue

The final year of Cameron's undergraduate education was a busy one. In between assignments, job interviews, and his capstone project, he hardly had time for anything else.

He opted not to stay in the dorms for his final year, living at home instead. It wasn't that far of a commute. He didn't mind.

He still saw Heinrich, in the little free time he had. The two of them would go out for lunch on campus, as well as the occasional drink or two. They never really talked about that summer, except in vague or offhand ways. Heinrich never asked Cameron exactly what happened, that last day.

… That being said, maybe Heinrich knew already. After all, he could've very well asked Miyu herself, after all, having stayed behind in the Nocturne house after Cameron stormed out.

Speaking of which—Miyu Nocturne never ended up returning to Crystal City Academy that fall. Must have dropped out, Cameron supposed.

Cameron did see Elegia a few times, on his way between classes. If Miyu's brother noticed him at all, he gave no hint of it. But that was to be expected, considering how much Elegia must have hated Cameron at that point.

Needless to say, Cameron never approached or greeted the elf.

Not much to say besides that. The entire year passed by so quickly, in fact, that before he knew it, Cameron was already tossing his cap up along with the rest of his graduating class, sleeved in his long, black gown.

Could he deny that, as he looked to the crowd, he had hopes, however remote the possibility, that she would be staring back at him somewhere, with a smile? Even if it had only been to support her own brother's graduation?

No, he couldn't. (… Complete pipe dream anyway, as her brother was in the arts. They had their own ceremony for that, so the whole fantasy fell apart pretty quickly …)

The job market being what it was, it wasn't long before Cameron found his first job.

He accepted a junior position at a government-backed startup specializing in crystal-to-crystal communications—the aptly, if not too cleverly, named Crystal Communications. (CryCom, for short.)

It was an exciting time for communications technology. It seemed like every day some new discovery or breakthrough was being made. Transforming sounds into signals, sending those signals across crystals, and then extending the range they could be sent, with signal-boosting repeater stones—Cameron was at the forefront of it all, with CryCom leading the way.

The money was good, and he liked his co-workers well enough. He wasn't particularly close to any of them, but they got along … fine. To him, they weren't so much friends, as like-minded individuals working toward a common goal.

That first year, he hardly did anything besides work. There were so many projects going on, and even though he was still very much inexperienced in the working world, his natural problem-solving skills proved to be a valuable asset. The higher-ups noticed. He earned a new promotion each year, and after just three years he was the lead engineer on his team.

Meanwhile, Heinrich had taken a job as a technical artist at a crystal machines firm. ("Never thought I'd sell out my soul like this," his former roommate had grumbled, over drinks. "I wanted to make art!")

Outside of work, Cameron didn't do all that much. He had no hobbies to speak of. Aside from Heinrich, he didn't have any other friends. On weekends he wandered around Crystal City, gazing out from the park terraces, or browsing various shops without ever buying anything.

Sometimes he worked longer hours at CryCom, if for no other reason than to pass the time. Getting to work on crystal tech was more fun than any hobby could ever be, anyway.

He didn't date much. It wasn't because he couldn't make the time, or that he was too busy, or anything like that. He just … didn't care all that much. The women he'd met were all nice and pleasant enough. But, again—he just didn't care anymore.

Sometimes at night, he would lay in bed, absently twirling the crystal ring he'd made for her, thinking about the past. He thought about their three years. He thought about that summer. Mostly, he tried thinking just about the good parts. … Mostly.

He still lived at home. He had tried living outside when he'd first started his job, but he soon found there just wasn't much of a point. After all, he didn't have much of a life. If he was going to sit in his room after work and do nothing, he might as well do it close to his parents. (Plus, he didn't need to cook this way.)

He kept working. He was still in touch with Heinrich, but even they started hanging out less and less.

They had one last hurrah between former roommates, though, at Heinrich's bachelor party. The wedding that followed was a nice enough ceremony. Lovely bride. A sweet and gentle soul, from up north. No idea how he'd managed that.

During his sixth year at CryCom, Cameron was proud to see one of the products he'd had a major part in designing finally release to the public. Being so expensive on launch, it was available only to the wealthiest of early adopters. But they were still in the process of refining it, making it cheaper, as well as improving the City's infrastructure to support it. A major, new invention that would revolutionize the very idea of communication.

The name the marketing team chose to go with for the device was none other than: the 'crystalphone'.

You could speak into it, and communicate instantly across vast distances to another crystalphone. Entire conversations, no matter how far you were.

Fascinating stuff.

The year the crystalphone debuted was also the year he buried his mother.

The same growth that had caused a health scare when he was still in second year—a difficult time in his life he wouldn't've gotten through without Miyu—had returned, but this time, Cameron's mother had lost the battle.

It was her close proximity to the crystal refinement process at her job, the doctors suspected.

Afterwards, it was just Cameron and his dad. They didn't have much to say to each other. Not out of coldness, or anything—there just simply weren't that many words between them.

Cameron kept his head down at work, and continued working.

More time passed.

During one winter, a particularly bad epidemic of shatter-lung cough swept Crystal City. It got so bad that the officials instituted a complete lockdown to try and slow the spread—nobody was allowed to leave their homes, except to buy groceries, or see the doctor. Whenever he left to buy food, the streets were deserted, and what few people he saw walking around always wore fabric scarves around their mouths.

The death toll was quite high. Carts carried bodies by the pile out of the City.

Cameron's father among them.

And so, by the time the lockdowns ended, and life returned to normal in the City, Cameron found himself, for the first time in his life, truly and utterly alone.

He kept working. More time passed.

A few years after the shatter-lung epidemic, there began swirling rumors of war—the signs were all there. The army mobilizing its forces. The City posting propaganda posters against the Elfen Kingdom. Subtle ones, at first—before becoming outright aggressive. There weren't any elves in Cameron's department, but he heard other companies start to lay off any working elves in their workforce.

… Whatever. It didn't affect him in any significant way, so Cameron ignored it. He was too busy anyway, with the expansion of the crystalphone network. With each year, the crystalphones became more and more affordable, and soon nearly half of all households had one installed.

It always astonished Cameron how quickly and easily new technology became an accepted part of people's lives. One day, they had no idea instant vocal communcation was even possible. The next, they were chatting away on their crystalphone, without a second thought. As if it had been there all along.

Reports of this battle, or this skirmish, reached his ears sometimes. But they were so far away, so far removed from his own reality, that he didn't feel anything about them. Elfen lives lost. Human casualties. All just background noise, as he spent his days working.

The City held military parades, to show their strength. He never went to them, but he could hear them sometimes—the roar of the crowd, the blare of trumpets and fanfare—from his office. The sounds of crystal war machines.

Everywhere he went, he saw the faces on posters, of the Heroes of Crystal City: four of the most elite soldiers in the military. Undefeated on the battlefield. Total elfen body count so high it was unimaginable.

Kids loved them. They even had their own line of action figures.

But despite the war going on, it was all business as usual for Cameron.

None of it had much of an impact on his daily life.

… That is, until one otherwise non-descript spring morning, when Cameron, on his way to work, felt a rumbling in the ground. Smoke rising from the other side of the City. Far away enough that he wasn't in any danger, but still close enough that he was slightly unnerved. Chaos flooding the affected area, off in the distance.

It was only during his lunch break at work, later that day, that he learned the explosion had been a terror attack by the Elfen Kingdom.

As it turned out, the target had been none other than his alma mater, Crystal City Academy.